Court backs government broadband wiretap access

[kpete]

Court backs government broadband wiretap access
By Peter Kaplan
Fri Jun 9, 5:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the government's authority to force high-speed Internet service providers to give law enforcement authorities access for surveillance purposes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a petition aimed at overturning a decision by regulators requiring facilities-based broadband providers and those that offer Internet telephone service to comply with U.S. wiretap laws.

In a split decision, two of three judges on the panel concluded that the 2005 Federal Communications Commission requirement was a "reasonable policy choice" even though information services are exempted from the government's wiretapping authority.

The FCC has set a May 14, 2007, deadline for compliance, and the ruling drew praise from the FCC and the Justice Department, which sought the access.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060609/ts_nm/telecoms_wiretaps_court_dc_8

[MadMaddie]

1. They can't even monitor what they have....

[mike_c]

2. implementation of the police state continues apace....

The greatest thing about the decline of the Soviet Union is that the United States is now free to pursue the sorts of totalitarian policies that would inevitably have been compared to those of the "evil empire" 30 years ago. I never thought I'd see it during my lifetime.

[rooney]

3. Congress might as well say to our dictator,

"go ahead", "do whatever you want to do" and we will make the laws accordingly for a while. Then after 2008 the laws can be forgotten completely. IMO

[DBoon]

4. "we" actually lost the cold war

nt